


Memories Hurt

by f_imaginings



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Deliberate Starvation, Heavy Themes, Kankri logic, M/M, Power Play, Scarification, Talking to Oneself, asphyxiation play, consensual sickleplay, dream bubble physics, reckless self endangerment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:24:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_imaginings/pseuds/f_imaginings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Karkat catches Kankri talking to himself, he finds himself drawn into the dire sort of inquiry Kankri presents. Edited from an rp with Lactoria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lactoria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lactoria/gifts).



Given the running joke still stands; that witty wry observation that Kankri Vantas would lecture thin air if granted the opportunity, it was almost painfully ironic that talking to oneself occupied a vast majority of the undead mutant’s time.

“You know, something I’ve always puzzled over would be - memory food?” Kankri’s voice rang out in the supposedly empty hive. “Does the food we eat in the bubbles nourish us at all, or is it the idea of being nourished that sustains us? The connotations of sustenance that food implies? What gives ‘ghost food’ its gumption, is what I’m curious about.”

Kankri tapped his stylus pen against his chin. Thinking aloud was a generally accepted method of productive puzzlespongestorming. Hardly as controversial as it seems.

“Another thing! Does Porrim actually glean sustenance from her specific food group, or is it simply the idea of consuming that consumes her? Does she actually benefit at all from drinking haemoglobin, or is it more of a mental stimuli, a sort of draw and conquer mentality that sustains the mind, but not the body?”

Having eons of afterlife to be left alone, to seek company or solitude if one wishes, it was hardly surprising that Kankri, over the sweeps, had contested abject solitude with amiable one sided discourse. Certain habits were simple enough to form. Talking to oneself helps stir the monotony. It’s good to hear a ready voice, even if that voice is your own.

He scribbled a note into his palmhusk, dotting the stylus with flourish. “Not to invalidate her particular dietary requirements, but has she ever tested whether simply stopping, a cessation of the fluid intake, would impact her adversely, or recognisably at all? Perhaps that particular query should stay in the realm of speculation, I doubt she’d appreciate me asking. But the question remains.”

Leaning over his palmhusk, scrawling down the words he spoke in sound bites as he spoke them, Kankri continued to postulate. “Can a body in stasis benefit from nourishment, or is the idea of a physical body, assumed due to the fact that as a ‘ghost’ I would be tangible to the living, thus, a tangible body is implied? Or is the body merely a construct of the puzzlesponge? If I thought hard enough to alter my memories would I appear differently, or do the supposed rules of dying govern how I may present myself, as opposed to how I wish to be perceived?”

Unbeknownst to Kankri, he had an uncharacteristically silent audience. Karkat, having crept into the study, drawn by the sound of his partner’s seemingly growing neurosis, leaned against the doorframe, watching his partner’s back, curved as it was over the palmhusk, jotting down pertinent points from his lecture.

“For that matter, why do foods from specific memory bubbles not take on the qualities of nostalgia when eaten? Why doesn’t the first cake Meenah shared with the team taste better due to fondness of recollection?”

Karkat shifted on the doorframe, his infinitesimal movement subconsciously drawing Kankri’s eye. He span idly in his desk chair as he continued talking, until the moment when he noticed Karkat was indeed standing there.

“Not that I’m ‘dissing’ Meenah’s baking skills, but - OH GOD.”

Karkat heaved an enduring sigh. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Kankri had a hand resting on his chest, the other pointing at his young paramour. “You’re there.”

Karkat scraped the sole of his socked foot against the doorframe. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

“How long have you been standing there??”

“Long enough to safely assume you’re insane.”

Kankri bristled. “I’m not insane. Talking to yourself doesn’t automatically accredit you as such. I’ve just spent a lot of time with little company, it’s a habit I’ve had trouble breaking, that’s all.”

“It’s not that.” Karkat clarified. “It’s the fact that you’re questioning your existence. I mean, really, shouldn’t you know if you need to eat by now? Or has it been so long that you’re starting to question your daily processes?”

“Well, no.” Kankri conceded. “But inquiry isn’t static. Especially now that different bubbles and planes are intersecting.”

Karkat yawned and stretched against the door. “Well, these questions you pose are interesting, and making me second-guess it all now.”

Kankri turned his desk chair to partially face Karkat, abandoning his palmhusk. “I often have chats about possibility and innovation of memory with Latula. She’s been quite elucidating in discussing potential for reforming the bubbles. It is a very interesting topic. Latula managed to recollect a memory of a fully functioning vintage joystick game machine that she saw in passing in a magazine into a fully actualised memory based reality, so it is certainly possible to subvert the rules of the bubbles. Though her talents as the Mind player of our team may have factored into that creation.”

Karkat raised an inquisitive brow. “Reforming the bubbles? How so? That’s – that’s pretty revolutionary, Kankri.”

“Isn’t it?!!” He spun around in his work chair, and begun talking to Karkat about the subject in earnest, hand gestures rampant, littering his speech. “I personally am interested in how recollection and regeneration impact the body. I’ve run tests before, different methods of inquiry. These tests were sweeps ago mind, I had to stop when Porrim found out.”

“Extremely innovative.” Karkat commented. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, since everything here is built on memories alone.”

“Well, memories are malleable. Just look at Mituna. With the extent of pan damage that he has suffered he shouldn’t have access to the memories he does at all, but in a lucid moment he can imagine figurative gamescapes from fictional constructs and inhabit and actualize them.”

Karkat wrinkled his nose, picking up on the point Kankri sailed past. “Wait. Porrim isn’t on board with this effort? Why?”

“Oh. Well, she didn’t exactly  _approve_  of my testing methods. Obviously it would be unethical to test memory manipulation on anyone else, or any other living construct - or undead as it may seem - but in terms of experimentation regarding regeneration, possible change, extrusion of physical traits etc. I chose to test on myself.”

Kankri sounded so blasé saying this, so casual, overly so, which gave Karkat cause to narrow his oculars.

“… What kind of tests did you run?”

“Interesting, positively ground breaking ones if I had avenue to continue them. I went through periods where I would refuse to eat, testing the impact of nourishment and its physical alterations on the body. I attempted to replicate the memory of differing hues of blood, attempted to replace haemoglobin cell by cell. I attempted to test if memories could alter our appearance to earlier or later periods of our lifespans, if it would be possible to inhabit the body of a potential future me, or if it were possible at all to inhabit the past selves of my memories. It was truly fascinating to see the process of regeneration, how many days would pass before the body resumes its initial state of post death iteration.”

Kankri’s enthused prattle unfolded a terrifying image of reckless carelessness with oneself. No wonder Porrim put her foot down. The fact that Kankri could discuss this period of what could only be detachment and self-loathing as if it were a matter of light hearted conversational discourse was simply a testament to his rather contorted set of personal priorities. He talked about his experimentation the same way he discussed his personal experiences with culling, the scant few instances where he even touched upon the topic on a personal level. He was incredibly reluctant to associate the things that happened to him with himself, and his own experiences. It was a noticeable pattern, observable for Karkat throughout the two sweep period they shared together since their initial meeting in the dream bubbles.

It was worrying, certainly a concern, but Kankri couldn’t tolerate concern, genuine or otherwise, and so Karkat simply watched him, as he continued to discuss his experiments in an academically engaged manner.

“Depending on the level of damage, it seems up to three days is the maximum time wherein regeneration stalls, though it accelerates if one swiftly changes thought to a differing memory period, interestingly enough. There’s a whole untested field of speculation to uncover with dream bubble afterlives. Reality doesn’t work the way you think it should. Preconceived notions can be replicated, or rejected on a completely arbitrary basis. The constant in the bubbles isn’t reality - its possibility.”

Karkat squinted at Kankri. “Weren’t you afraid of doing something irrevocable?”

Kankri paused in his excitement and pursed his lips, a small frown creasing his forehead. He watched Karkat, reading his query as worry. “Less so, then.”

Karkat held his hands up before him. “Hey, I’m all about what you were doing – even though it’s fucking brutal – and I don’t blame Porrim for pulling the lusus card on that agenda. But it would suck the big one to get stuck for all eternity with a hole in your gut or some weird neglect-induced anomaly.”

Kankri frowned, and began to retort, but Karkat interrupted.

“Why not try something on a smaller scale? I assume you or any of your friends have cut themselves or injured themselves bad enough to see a healing process through. But have any of you fucked yourselves up good enough to leave a scar?”

Kankri was all set to face reproach for his activities, expecting the same sort of outrage Porrim had when she discovered his experiments. He could remember how furious she was, glowing white, screeching.  _'THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU IDIOT!'_  It was hardly a proud moment for him.

Karkat’s affirmative interest was something unexpected and it threw Kankri a loop for a moment there, before he looked over his young dancestor with an air of wonder about him.

“No. No, so far we haven’t scarred since the explosion.” He fingered the side hem of his trousers, a subconscious indicator of how eager he was to follow this pathway of inquiry and bad intentions. “I wonder if that would be different though, if the injury were inflicted by the living.”

His eyes were remarkably bright once more, for all their blankness, as he began putting the pieces together. “After all, the mass double-death genocide of the ghosts at the fringe bubbles was caused by a  _living_  colossus, who wreaked permanent damage that was otherwise unthought of. It would be a very real possibility that the potential for change would lie in the hands of the living rather than the static deceased. Why didn’t _I_ think of that  _sooner_?”

Karkat had to let himself laugh out loud.

“Look at you, absolutely fucking giddy.”

Again, Karkat caught him off guard, and Kankri’s first instinct was to freeze, uncertain if his giddiness here was a good thing.

Karkat took note of the start and cracked a reassuring grin.

“So what kind of scar do you want to potentially wear for all of eternity?”

Kankri’s eyebrows raised drastically and he looked at Karkat like he had never seen him before. “Are you considering testing this with me?”

Karkat tried to shrug it off and play it casual. “Well, you did say you’ve already tested several of your limits so I know you’re not going into this blindly. I’m willing to test this with you as long as you acknowledge that you  _could_  bear a lasting mark. I’m not sure how neurotic you are about your precious, squishy soft body.”

Karkat punctuated this statement with a leer. “Oh, and it will hurt too. Pretty sure pain will be involved.”

Kankri blinked and licked his lips, trying to look casual here too. He scooched forward in his chair, extending his hand to capture Karkat’s and pull him closer. “I think I’d be prepared to test that. I’m just not sure how we’d go about it.” He wetted his lips once more. “It would have to be somewhere Porrim couldn’t see.”

Karkat allowed Kankri to reel him in by the hand, his other sweeping lightly over Kankri’s cheek in a caress.

“I could make a little incision with my sickle.”

Looking at Karkat like he was a revelation was becoming a common occurrence for Kankri. He covered Karkat’s hand with both of his warmly, and bringing it up to his lips, brushed what could barely be considered a kiss across Karkat’s knuckles.

“I would like that.”

“You sure about that?” Karkat smirked, his brow quirking.

Kankri laughed briefly and pulled a face. “Well, probably not, if it becomes unbearable. Somehow I doubt that will be the case.” He pulled Karkat’s hand up to rest against his neck. “We do tend to skirt the lines of what could be considered safe, you and I.”

Karkat’s hand clenched over Kankri’s windpipe, a present reminder, though hardly restricting his breath.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”

Kankri snorted laughter, before elongating his neck proudly, stretching his neck into Karkat’s hand, to look Karkat directly in the eye like the younger troll were something to be  _devoured_.

“Oh, will you now?”


End file.
